Boyce

Variations – Boice, Boise, Boles, Dubois, Wood, Atwood, Bywood
Racial Origin – English, Norman-French and French
Source – A locality.

England and France are full of family names founded on the forest, for forests were more plentiful in the days of family name formations than they are today in both of those countries. The French family names rarely show signs of English influence, but the reverse is not true of the English names.

In fact, there were as many of these, “wood,” names developed in England from the Normans’ speech, as from the Saxons’.

The form Boyce, though so close to the French “bois” or (wood), is undeniably an English name. The French tongue, uninfluenced by the Saxon, would never have developed it, though in medieval French the pronunciation was “boiss” rather that the present “bwah.” It is not that the French tongue has failed to develop in the direction of the pronunciation of “Boyce,” but that it has actually developed away from it. It is interesting to note, in fact, that the unschooled English tongue naturally pronounces the average French word, so that it would be likely to be recognized by a medieval Frenchman, though not at all by a modern Frenchman.

The manner in which such names as these, originally indicative or residence locality, have developed into family names has been shown in other surnames. Atwood was originally “at the wood.” And Dubois is the same as “de le bois” or “del bois,” and means “of the wood.”